WHERE RACE AND THE LAW MEET
by Brando Simeo Starkey

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Republican Party Can't Quit Racism

After the 2008 election, it was clear that the Republican Party could not survive as an all-white male party. The country's non-white population has simply increased too much for the GOP to not attract a sizeable share of minorities' votes and survive. Times have changed. Had last fall's election been decided with 1980's racial electorate composition, John McCain and (gasp!) Sarah Palin would be in charge. Instead, Senator McCain is still Senator McCain.

The Republican Party made terrific gains during the Nixon and Reagan years through the use of the Southern Strategy. The Party appealed to whites, especially southerners, who concluded that national policy had catered to black folks for far too long. That strategy, however, is not efficacious in national elections any longer.

The Party bigwigs understand the pressing need to attract votes from minority communities. Yet, the Republican Party can't quit racism. Since the election of President Obama, there have been incidents that are simply inexcusable coming from the Right.

Sonia Sotomayor was villified as a racist and a "reverse discriminator" for expressing thoughts as did Justice Alito. The recent election of Audra Shay as the chairman of the Young Republicans is pretty pathetic. On her Facebook page, a friend wrote "[we]need to take this country back from all of these mad coons" to which she responded: "You tell em Eric! lol." She said that there was a misunderstanding but the Dailybeast found other troubling quotes. After Sarah Palin was hung in effigy she wrote, "What no 'Obama in a noose? ... I am wondering if the guys with the Palin noose would care if we had a bunch of homosexuals in a noose." She also said that Obama "attacks white people" and posted a video claiming that Obama thinks he has to help blacks moreso than whites to "ensure his own salvation."

One of the most influential right-leaning blogs, Freerepublic.com, is embroiled in a racist scandal of its own. Posters on the site referred to members of the Obama family thusly: "A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion." About the family, one wrote: "They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps." While these words were not uttered by people in the leadership ranks, this explains why the party hasn't gotten the hint that it needs to change its ways. It also suggests how difficult it will be for the party to hold the vote of the wingnusts while reaching out to moderate voters and minority voters who are disgusted by such speech. Perhaps the Right will need more time in the wilderness.

1 Comment

Nice blog. The first post is not quite that concise assessment sprinkled with Brando wit that I enjoy about your writing style, but it's definitely there to be developed. Not to be too critical here, but in the next post maybe you can touch more on the legal aspect of the Sotomayor nomination. I'd really like to hear about the issue of "empathy" and how it would relate to say drug cases, racial profiling, general discrimination, etc. Honestly it would be nice if legal approaches where juxtaposed and made relevant to qoutidian concerns. It'd be nice to see it done with that Brando wit.